


Building Bridges While They Burn

by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill)



Series: Draco/Al Bridge series [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Boss/Employee Relationship, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Public Nudity, Spanking, Twisted Family Dynamics, dancing in a cage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-11 19:14:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2079918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumosed_quill/pseuds/lq_traintracks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He can't help his green eyes, fit arse, and lazy smile. So what that having that smile directed at me is my fucking wet dream?</i>
</p><p><b>Age Disparity:</b> 44 (Draco)/ 18 (Albus)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Building Bridges While They Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Beta thanks goes to the lovely iwao, without whom I would be spelling stupefy wrong the rest of my LIFE! Huge hugs, bb! This prompt! Ohhhh, this prompt! It was an honour to write it, and that's all I'm gonna say. <3

I.

I knew I should have put up that _Harry Potter Not Allowed_ sign. Though, this one's only _a_ Potter, not _the_ Potter after all.

He can't help that he looks just like him. Or how Potter looked during our eighth year, more specifically. And without the glasses.

He can't help that he's beautiful, I tell myself.

He can't help his green eyes, fit arse, and lazy smile.

So what that having that smile directed at me is my fucking wet dream?

Never mind that I've banished Potter from my life, my dreams, my memories. I no longer fixate on that one time when we were drunk in Hogsmeade and we fisted each other's hard cocks in a freezing cold alley and actually _laughed_ that we were doing it finally and it was really sort of undeniably brilliant.

Never mind that it was me who retreated, me who brought the walls back up, practically shoved him back into Ginny Weasley's arms.

I wasn't scared. I'm _not_ scared. That's not it at all. I'm a Malfoy. Malfoys don't fuck Potters. 

Malfoys don't suck cock.

Malfoys don't get their arses ploughed by gorgeous thick pricks.

If they're smiled at like that in freezing fucking cold alleys, they don't buy the emotion displayed. It's how we survive.

It's how we carry on.

Yet here he is. In _my_ club. Smiling at me.

 _Albus Severus Potter NOT Allowed_ , my mind screams at me.

But he gives me a slow once over, says, "I'm here to audition for you," and against my better judgement, I'm crossing my arms, leaning against the wall, and then nodding toward the bar.

He mounts it easily, his young body completely under his control. He's effortless. I feel old instantly.

Then the music starts, and he is _nothing_ like his father in this respect.

The boy can move.

He peels his clothes off one item at a time until he's turning and inching his pants down, teasing me with a peek at the dark crevice and that sweet bubbled arse of his, and I'm hiring him before I can stop myself.

Two hundred Galleons a week plus tips. If he's late, he's sacked. If he shows his cock, he's sacked.

If his father shows up to kill me, he is so fucking sacked.

"Understood?"

His smile is that same smile. That alleyway grin.

I swallow against the rock in my throat and walk away.

~

It becomes apparent that he needs to be caged.

I have a strict policy that the patrons don't touch the dancers, even the ones they can reach. The little shit is bringing in several hundred Galleons a night in tips, and my bar sales are through the roof, but Christ, they can't keep their bloody hands off of him -- witches and wizards alike.

So into the cage he goes.

He does well in there and seems to enjoy it. When I've finished with keeping my books (three years of Advanced Arithmancy at the Brussels School for Higher Wizarding Maths, and this is what I do with it) and creating next week's schedule, I go out and watch him. He works those cage bars in ways that ought to be illegal -- which is fitting for a dodgy nightclub down Knockturn Alley run by an ex-Death Eater, but not exactly fitting for a Potter, not even a Slytherin one. Which I've found out he is.

Three kids, three Houses. Maybe if Potter and the Weaselette hadn't separated they could have finally come up with at least one Gryffindor. I snort and then I watch his middle child climb the cage bars, hang from them, rub his half-hard cock against them in time to the throbbing music.

Any and all mirth leaves me.

Watching him, I'm breathless.

He jumps down, all athlete, pulls his pants down and shows them his arse (not against the rules), and I get to see it. That bouncy little rump undulating and begging for a fuck.

I watch him back into the bars, pressing it against them, rolling his hips. I can tell he's all the way hard now, just from teasing them. He opens drugged eyes, turns his head as though he's a Seer, unerringly finds me watching him, and, staring at me, wets his lips.

I stare back, hands in my pockets to keep them from shaking, my shoulder leaned against a post. I watch him hump his arse back against the bars. I can just see the barest hint of a peek of his rosy prick from my unique vantage point at the door to the 'Employees Only' hallway.

He's holding the bars over his head and pushing that rump back against the cage rhythmically when it happens: some arse-hungry wizard has had enough and kneels before Albus' godly arse and starts voraciously eating it through the bars. Albus' face registers surprise, but he doesn't move away. His lips part, his eyes slide closed, and he stays there, shuddering with pleasure.

I've drawn my wand, and I'm across the room in three long strides. 

" _Stupefy!_ "

Admittedly, I don't at all hold back on the spell. I put my full magic into it, and the bloke goes flying, crashing into a table about twenty feet away and crumpling into unconsciousness.

Goyle is there in moments, dragging his arse up and looking at me for confirmation that he should shuck the prick into the alley. I give him a nod.

Then I'm all over that bloody cage, charming it open, dragging Albus out by the elbow. He doesn't resist. He knows he fucked up. I pull him through the club to the tune of whistles and taunts. I jerk him into my office, slam the door, and shout in his face, "What the _FUCK_ were you bloody thinking, you--?"

But it's hard to keep shouting at someone who's sliding to their knees in front of you, pushing you back into your own warded door, looking up at you with dilated eyes, and unfastening your belt.

"You..." I try again.

His response is to yank my trousers and briefs to mid-thigh and nuzzle my cock.

"You..." It comes out as a ragged sigh.

Oh, Merlin -- dammit...

Then he's sucking my cock -- long, blissful bobs of his head, root to tip, root to tip, then handling me in one hand and tonguing the slit, moaning the whole while.

Or maybe that's me.

I slam my head back into the door. "Potter," I breathe. And when I look down at him, kissing the head of my cock like it's true love, he peers up at me...and he winks.

I take his head in my hands and shove my cock into his mouth.

He gags a little, recovers, and then just holds onto my legs for support while I fuck his pretty face.

Albus Severus Potter. I chant his name in my head so that I know who this is. My cock repeatedly stretching his mouth is a thing of beauty to me. His little whimpers, his hand dropping into his pants to stroke himself, the bass pounding through the door...it's all kismet. I'm high on him. I'm about to fly.

I pull out and rub my cock over his open lips, holding him there by the hair. He smiles up at me and then opens again, obligingly. I beat myself off, the fire of it flaring down my thighs, and it flings onto his face, his cheeks, spills into his greedy mouth. He opens for it, tries to suck me again, but I hold him back and just watch him try, his face, _his_ face, covered with my come.

When I can stop panting, I push him away. He falls on his arse and wipes his smirking mouth. I pull up my trousers. "You pull that shit again in the cage, I'll kill him and Stun you."

He looks half-chagrined. He just came in his pants, so it's no wonder he can't achieve something more believable. But he says, "Yes, sir," anyway.

"Get dressed and go home. You're finished tonight."

He stands up, brushing off his bum. I move around behind my desk, putting on my reading glasses and taking a seat. 

"Um, Mr Malfoy?" he says.

_Mr Malfoy. Jesus._

"What."

"I, uh, can't get through your door wards," he tells me.

I huff and roll my eyes, drawing my wand and taking them down. I'm a bit forceful and feel the recoil of magic up my arm. I stifle a grunt of pain, holster my wand, and shake out my stinging wrist.

"Thank you," he nearly whispers, and it feels loaded, not about the wards at all.

He leaves and closes the door behind him. I throw the wards right back up, too hard again, and the door rattles on its hinges.

I lean back in my chair, closing my eyes.

 

II.

He takes to hanging out with me after close while I work my numbers at the bar and nurse a Firewhisky. At first it feels like he's trying to chat me up, get it to happen again (which it hasn't). But then it turns easier. He adopts a repose, starts calling me Draco. He's not working off an agenda to get laid.

I'm fond of both approaches.

I hate that I'm fond of anything having to do with him.

I spend all night, ten to two, watching him shake his arse, pinch his tits, wink at customers. I spend the night watching him dance like he was born to it.

My life is crunching numbers and watching Albus move. In between, I sleep, eat some, martinis with Pans, curry with Blaise, etc. I don't burn any bridges now, you know. I have precious few contacts who wouldn't throw me in Azkaban as soon as shake my hand.

_You'll soon find out some wizarding families are better than others, Potter._

Merlin, what a prat I was. Maybe still am. I'm not sure. At any rate, can't be too careful.

Albus doesn't seem to think I'm a prat. He's a bridge I'd never have thought of crossing, much less burning. He sits with me every night and asks how the club is doing; asks if I ever relax; tells me he wishes he could fly like his brother, James, or do Defence like his sister, Lily; tells me Potions are his thing and he's heard they used to be mine.

I don't ask where he's heard this.

I don't talk about the past. I don't talk about much at all. I let him sip a couple of Firewhiskys with me before he starts yawning and has to Apparate to his flat to sleep around three-thirty or four.

I let him sit close to me, perching his outstanding arse on the barstool next to mine so that sometimes our knees touch, his perpetually in denim, mine in a silk-wool blend that Blaise insists "works" on me.

I like the sound of another person's voice in the room, though I always commandeer the sound system for myself and play soft Muggle jazz to obliterate the silence anyway. Pans turned me on to it. She's taken a Muggle for a lover, if you can believe that shite.

Times, they are a'changing.

So, here we sit now, like all the other nights, and he's telling me about James losing his latest Quidditch match with the Hollyhead Harpies because he's been mooning over their Seeker.

"And Dad's all, 'Oh, it's okay, son. You'll win it next time,' and all this bollocks, and Mum's like, 'James, if you so much as look at her again, I'll bloody kill you!'" He's laughing before he's even finished with his story, and I can't help but smile, even though he's keeping me from calculating my overhead costs accurately.

He sips his drink and sobers. I feel him look at me sideways, assessing something.

He clears his throat and adopts a casual tone. "What happened with you and him anyway?"

"With me and who?" I ask, frowning at the price of ordering Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Vodka from my current seller. Fuck, it's enough to make me want to go with Longbottom instead!

"You and Dad," he clarifies, and at that, I look up.

"What?"

"Did you fuck him?"

"What?" I say louder, my heart suddenly pounding as though we're about to duel.

"Well, something happened, didn't it? When you were in school together?"

"You don't know what you're talking about," I tell him, though my voice is shaking. "Your father hates me and always has."

Albus smiles crookedly. "No," he says, full of ironic knowing. "He doesn't."

I stand abruptly and move into his space. "You don't bloody know what you're talking about."

"I know this," he tells me and palms my cock arrogantly.

I slap his hand away hard. I haul him up by the shoulders and spin him toward the bar. "You think you know _anything_ , you impulsive little fuck?" I shove his jeans and pants down, jostling him, and then I'm squeezing the globes of his arse possessively. It feels like I thought it would, like I've imagined it very late at night when I wank myself and pretend it could be anyone's arse. "You want to know something about me?" I growl at him.

_Potter's cold fingers around my warm cock..._

"Yes," Albus whines.

"You want me to fuck you against this bar?"

"Christ, yes." He bends, arching, grasping the edge of it.

I haul my cock out. "Well, too bloody bad, kid," I say. Then I slide my prick between his ample cheeks, press them together so he hugs my cock, and I ride him.

"Oh God..." he breathes, trying to widen his legs, trying to get me to breach him.

"Just hold still while I come all over you," I grunt, fucking my hips and watching my cock move, the head emerging from the dark of his crease over his lower back time and again. Right above his arse are two dimples, for fuck's sake. I just do not need those dimples in my life. I grit my teeth, involuntarily hungry for him.

"Draco..." I hear him sigh.

I look up to see him watching me in the mirror behind the bar...watching me watch my own cock between the sweaty globes of his arse. I meet his eyes in the mirror, blink and meet my own.

I look like an animal.

He looks enraptured.

I'd close my eyes, but...

_My hand tugging on Potter's cock... Him biting his lip. "Malfoy... Fuck..."_

I keep my eyes wide open and slide my cock over Albus' anus even though I'd kill to fuck him. 

He's gripping the bar as hard as I'm gripping him. He goes up on his toes, trying to lure me inside. I smile, still for a moment, and spank his arse. I feel it in my cock, and it's bloody good, so I do it again.

He mewls for my hand slapping his arse. He _mewls_.

I grab his arse again, press him tight around me, and thrust slow. The anger has drained out of me, and now I want this to last all night. Chet Baker is on, and Albus is watching me in the mirror, blinking like he's on potions, and his arse feels velvet like the best Firewhisky I've ever had, warm as honey.

I shuffle my feet in, drop my head to his back, and feel his breathing, the powerful thud of his heart. I'm not going to last. He makes me feel like I'm eighteen again. 

He makes me feel like I never did when I was bloody eighteen.

I wrap one hand around his darling cock and stroke it. Fifteen leisurely tugs and he comes, keening to the empty bar. I follow him, the lazy trumpet almost a caress of its own. I shoot so hard, some of it lands on my own bottom lip. 

I flick my tongue out and swipe it away.

 

III.

At midnight on Saturday, a dark magic threat is called in to the Ministry, and upwards of twenty Aurors descend on Knockturn at once. Before they can storm my club, I share a look with Albus, and he hurries to get his clothes on.

I swallow against my nervous pulse and watch the door.

Three of them -- two witches and a wizard, none of whom I recognize and all of whom look roughly Al's age, which can't be right, but whatever -- overtake my bar like I caused the bloody threat rather than being the potential victim of it.

I answer one of the witch's questions while the other two search the premises. My business floods right out the door like the building's overrun with doxies, ghouls, and boggarts alike. I breathe deeply and make an attempt at patience with the girl. She's probably two, three years out of training, still getting her feet under her, and I'm sure interrogating Draco Malfoy isn't on her list of Fun Auror Things to Do and also has her a bit flummoxed, because she keeps checking this device she's carrying almost compulsively between every question, and I finally realise why when it flashes blue, and I catch some words flying across it. 

All I see is 'blah blah blah Auror-bullshit...' And then: ' _threat nullified'_ ' and the signature:

_Head Auror, Harry James Potter._

The witch thanks me for my cooperation, and I give her a tight smile. She looks down at my arm -- my shirt sleeves are rolled up almost to my elbows, because it's bloody hot, for Salazar's sake -- then she hastily looks away. "Thank you, Mr Malfoy," she says in closing. 

"Are you not even going to tell me what the threat was?" I say.

"Oh, er, I--" She gulps. "I've been instructed not to. But," she hastens to add when I scowl at her, "someone will be by to do that quite soon."

"Someone?"

"Have a good evening," she gets out, backing toward the door.

I shake my head as the others join her and leave. Piss-poor training they've got there, it seems to me. I could likely yell, "Boo!", and have two of the three scrambling for cover. (That second witch, though, looks like she could take me and Goyle both and still have a free hand for tea).

I'm turning to go fetch my accounting scrolls when the door opens again, and--

"Bloody hell," I sigh beneath my breath.

"Malfoy," he says. No disdain, no fight in it. Just my name quietly from his lips, carefully neutral.

"Potter," I answer. "If you've come to call off your crups, they've already made for the kennel."

"I haven't," he says, not taking the bait. Maybe he feels that there's no heat in it for me either. I just can't quite manage it.

"Drink?" I offer.

He shakes his head. "On duty. Thanks." The 'thanks' is only very slightly belated. I look at him in his Auror garb, fitted to a shine and emanating power that has nothing to do with anything other than his magic, which I can feel -- have always felt -- rolling off of him in controlled waves. He walks toward me, closing the distance between us, but only so much. "It's a group we've been tracking -- _Inferi Fury_." He shakes his head.

"It's a bit cute, isn't it? The name?" I suggest.

He gives me a wry smile. "They're young and cocky. But they're powerful. We're closing in," he adds with a shrug.

I cross my arms for something to do with them. "Have you considered that a dark group targeting a dodgy place like Knockturn doesn't make a shit-ton of sense?"

At this he smiles more genuinely. Like he's impressed. Like he's enjoying this conversation. I school my breath.

"We have," he concedes. "If their plan was to draw us away and weaken Ministry security, they're not going to like the magic Bulstrode put up around the entire block. She consults for us. She's very good," he adds. Then, "We've got a new program for wizards like yourself who are interested. Long probation period, but...well..." He shrugs again.

"Are you recruiting me, Potter?"

"You do good magic," he says. _Good_ magic... The double meaning brings a dark smirk to my face. His expression softens with renewed irony, a humour he doesn't quite feel.

We stand there staring at one another for long moments that are both rife with tension and as easy as anything.

"Fuck, have they gone yet? I could really use a stiff--"

I close my eyes, my jaw tight. 

_Bloody fucking hell, Albus._

"Drink," he finishes. Then, "Dad," his surprise a bright thing high in his throat.

"Al?" Potter replies. I can hear the confused frown in his voice and open my eyes again.

Al is, thankfully, fully clothed.

"Yeah, hey Dad. Catch anybody?"

"What are you doing here?" Potter asks. Oddly, he checks his watch. Probably a parental reflex from when his kids would come home too late, stinking of cheap Muggle beer.

I'm already preparing to either go for my wand in self-defence or run out my own backdoor and Apparate to, I don't know, Spain?...when Albus saves my arse.

"I've been helping behind the bar," he says. "Tip money and all."

Potter's still frowning, but he doesn't look suspicious, just perplexed. "Oh, right," he nods. "I told you your mum and I would pay for your schooling, though."

"I know. It's just...extra," Albus says.

"Schooling?" I can't help but chime in. I already know I'm showing too much interest, but I can't seem to help myself.

Potter lights up then, his magic a strong, proud, green-yellow thrum. "Al's been accepted into a prestigious Potions training program in South Korea. I don't know how we'll make it for two years without him around, but..." Potter grasps his son's shoulder and gives it a squeeze. "It's important, right?"

"Yeah," Al answers. "Right." He shoots me a covert glance, almost apologetic.

I don't know what he'd have to apologise for. Advanced work in potions... School in a new, exciting part of the world... It's a dream come true for him, I'm sure. I blink and smile at him tightly before I realise I ought not to smile at him at all. Maybe. My perception is decidedly off. "I didn't know. That's great," I tell him. I clear my throat. "Congratulations, Albus."

There's a weird silence, and then Potter nudges his son. "Say thank you, Al."

Albus is looking at me almost imploringly. "Thank you," he says quietly.

I nod at him and then look back at Potter. I feel like a lead cauldron, heavy and empty. Like I could fall through the floor and it would be all right by me.

"Well," Potter says. "Now that the place is cleared, I need to be going." He pats Al on the back. "Are you still, uh, working, or do you want to get something to eat with me?"

"I think I'll help Draco clean up," Al says.

The _Draco_ bit is a slip, and I see it flit over Potter's face before he dismisses it. "Okay then," he allows. He turns to me with a sigh, and Albus turns and leaves the room for I don't know where. Potter pulls something from his pocket, hesitates, and then hands it over. "For if you decide you want to..." He swallows, and when I don't pick up his polite social leave-off, he continues more genuinely. "We could talk about the job," he says. "We could get a pint."

His hand is shaking slightly.

I reach out and take the card from him. I nod.

"Make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble, will you?" he says then.

Guilt rises up in me, serpentine. I can say nothing.

He gives me a tight smile and sticks out his hand.

_I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks._

I reach out and take it. It's warm and strong and dry. We shake slowly, looking into one another's eyes. His hand feels _exactly_ how I remember it.

_Malfoy... I need to... Draco..._

I drop my hand. "Good seeing you, Potter." I'm not sure if I'm lying or not. I might be lying and telling the truth both at once.

"You, too, Malfoy." He smiles. He turns and leaves, his Auror coat billowing like a cape.

~

After I close up my prematurely empty club, I find Al in my office.

"I was going to tell you," he says.

"Take my arm."

His eyes drop to my Mark. 

I smile without humour. "Take it, Al."

He gulps but then does it, and I Apparate us upstairs to my flat above the club.

"You were going to tell me," I snarl.

I strip him violently. I rend his shirt and bruise his neck with my bite.

We stumble into the bedroom in the dark. I shove him down on the bed and take off my clothes while he finishes with his own. When I join him, I roll him on top of me, feel how our naked bodies fit together for the first time, and pull him down for a kiss, also our first. I had meant it to be rough, an abuse. But he whines into my mouth like I'm offering him heaven. The touch of his tongue ignites something inside me that has nothing to do with darkness.

I shove him abruptly back. "Turn the other way," I tell him.

He blinks, but then he obeys, turning to straddle me faced away. I Summon some oil, magically always warm. I coat my cock and stick a finger up inside him. He grips my thighs and rocks.

Soon, I'm replacing my finger with my dick. "Fuck yourself down on it," I tell him. I take his hips in my hands, my eyes having adjusted to the dark enough -- _too much_ \-- so that I can see that bloody marvellous arse as he sinks down, taking me deep, until he's sitting on my lap with my cock up his arse, and I can barely breathe for the feel of him.

He starts to move.

I thought it would be easier this way. I thought, if I didn't have to see his face...

But I can still hear him whimper and keen with the pleasure of getting fucked.

I can feel his oiled warmth tight around me.

His hands grip my legs, thumbs unconsciously stroking over the hair on my thighs.

His black hair is still a mess.

His arse in my hands is still the most fucking beautiful thing I've ever seen.

South Korea. Two _years_.

"Fuck you, Potter," I seethe.

"Yessss," he cries, going harder, slamming down on me.

"Fuck you, Albus..." I begin thrusting my hips up and meeting him.

"Oh _FUCK_!" he shouts. He streams out a litany of nonsense words, my name, more curses, my name...

"Fucking come, you sweet boy," I whisper, hating myself anew.

He gets a hand on his cock, goes fast. He drops his head back and whimpers my name as it happens. I run my hands up his bare back, the smooth strength of it. I leverage myself up, hold him back against me with one arm and brace with my other. I pound up into him, slapping my pelvis against his arse.

"Draco... God..." He gives equal weight to both words, and I'm ready to cry with wanting to be that to him, _for_ him. I want to be somebody's saviour. But I think the shit of it is, he might be mine.

"Al-bus," I stammer. Then I come deep within him. I rest my head on his shoulder, breathe ragged, and I let it all go inside him.

I let every bloody thing go, while gripping him so tight I hurt us both.

~

Eight weeks, it lasts.

We don't fuck every night. I don't even see him when he doesn't work. Merlin knows who else he's fucking.

I don't hold back with him physically. I've never not held back with my lovers. Not that I've "loved" anyone.

I don't love him.

I don't.

But I'm fond of him. This I can't deny.

I can't deny that I adore watching him dance. That Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights are full and exciting and I laugh more. I relax more.

I'm having better orgasms than I've ever had in my life. They seem connected, somehow, to the laughing. Sometimes, when I'm coming, I have the urge to laugh my bloody head off.

Crazy, right?

Also, Al can really suck a cock. Really. And fucking him is like bliss on tap.

I've let him fuck me, too. (Did I really once state that Malfoys don't get their arses ploughed by thick pricks? What an ignorant arsehole!) Albus goes in me like a race horse, quick and dirty and like he's just _got_ to get to the end. He can hardly wait to come once he's inside me. But he gets it up again fast, too. And then he always wants another go at me. (I almost always give it.)

Youth.

I can be inside _him_ forever. I make him sore with it. I make him beg.

I master him.

We have a lot of fun, Al and me.

And sometimes he stays and sleeps in my bed.

Sometimes he makes us both tea on a Sunday morning. He knows how I take it, and I know he always groans with lust as he takes a long morning piss. It makes me chuckle.

And then one day, early September and it's cool like Autumn already...

He comes to my office. "I would have given two weeks notice, but..." He shrugs. "I didn't want to ruin things."

He's quitting.

He's leaving.

It's time.

My heart plummets.

Shit, it's time.

"When?"

"Three days."

"Fuck, Albus."

"I'm sorry."

I sigh. I'm thinking Portkeys, holidays. I'm thinking I should have applied for this poncy school myself.

But God, what a stupid fucking idea! Me, chasing a young piece of arse all the way to South Korean potions school. Leaving my business. All for what?

Albus Severus Potter.

_Merlin, Albus Severus Potter..._

My insides tighten with rage and want.

"Right," I say. I give him the best smile I can muster and stand, coming around my desk. I hold out my hand to him.

"You bloody idiot," he says and grabs me in the tightest hug I've ever received. "Bloody fuck, I'm going to miss you," he says.

I hesitate...press my face into his hair. I breathe. Slowly, I tighten my own arms around his body. "Be good over there," I tell him unnecessarily.

He chuckles. "It's not a party school, Draco. I'm not going to fuck my brains out."

"You should," I say. "Just use protection spells."

Fucking Christ, what am I here?

He pulls back and gives me this look. I frown and he does a ridiculous thing, leaning in and kissing my cheek with so much tenderness it feels fatal. Then he draws back. "Don't wait for me," he says. "I'll make visits home, but... Draco, use the card."

"What?"

"The card he gave you. Use it."

"I have a perfectly good job," I tell him. He's standing close, holding my wrists loosely, and I feel stupid and helpless. 

"Not for that," he says.

I frown at him still further. "How can you suggest that? He's your--"

"I know what he is. I can suggest that because I know how things are. How they're supposed to be." He tilts his head and looks at me. "Can't you feel that?"

I hate how I feel, so I do the only thing I can think of: I wrench out of his gentle grasp, pull him to me hard and kiss the bloody life out of him.

I kiss it all into him. Words and words and unspoken words... Words I have not yet even said to myself.

He slides one hand up into my hair, the other onto my forearm, fingers sure and gentle along the Mark. When he pulls back, he's smiling. "I won't forget," he says. I don't even know what that means, but he's backing away. He's walking away. "Bye, Draco," he says.

Small and childlike, I answer, "Bye."

He closes my office door behind himself, and I'm left standing there with nothing.

I hate South Korea right then. I hate potions. I hate magic. I hate it all.

I take a deep breath, because I can't hate it all. I can't. When I close my eyes, I can see him dancing there in the blackness. Winking at me.

And I can't hate that.

I'll never hate that.

That darling, shimmying, perfect perfect arse!

I shove my hands into my pockets, sighing. My fingers collide with it, still sitting there in these same trousers.

I frown and pull it out. I turn it over in my fingers: plain, crisp, white. Just his name shimmering silently on the cardstock:

 _Harry Potter_.

I run my thumb over the lettering. And it glows.

~end~

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave your comments here or at [Livejournal](http://dm-asp-fest.livejournal.com/21953.html). ♥


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